Fee allocator system and method

ABSTRACT

A system is provided for automatically billing a designated account for fees associated with the costs of tickets and other similar services. Passenger Record Number data and similar data is provided through a Computerized Reservation System and an accounting system to a Fee Allocator program which automatically interprets the data, determines appropriate fees based on the data and a user profile, and bills the fees to an appropriate account based on the user profile. Billing data provided to the account also facilitates the process of reconciling the fees to the travel ticket costs. Enhanced descriptive billing statements can be created simplifying the process of reconciling fees to the travel ticket costs.

REFERENCE TO RELATED DOCUMENTS

[0001] This application claims the benefit of, and priority to, U.S.Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/218,445, filed Jul. 14, 2000, whichis hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0002] 1. Technical Field

[0003] The present invention relates generally to transaction fees andtransaction card billing and, more particularly, to the creation of anautomated allocation tool that disburses travel related transaction feesto specific corporate cost centers, and provides an enhanced descriptivebilling statement separately identifying transaction fees and relatedtravel charges such that the purchaser can easily reconcile thetransaction fees to the related travel charges.

[0004] 2. Background Information

[0005] Transaction fees are commonly provided to agents for value addedby the agents when selling certain goods or services. Transaction feesare more common where an agent acts as a broker of products or serves asa “middle-man”. For example, ticket outlets often sell tickets for avariety of venues and events such as: sporting events, concerts, plays,etc. Generally, in addition to the cost of the entertainment, atransaction fee is additionally charged to reimburse the ticket brokerfor its services. Another example includes travel agencies which brokertravel-related services, wherein the travel-related services include,but are not limited to: assisting in providing tickets throughtraditional and interactive bookings for air/rail/boat/bus travel,providing paper tickets or e-tickets, canceling tickets, processingrefunds and exchanges on tickets, reserving rental cars, reserving hotelrooms, and providing other value-added services such as ticket tracking,emergency travel services, travelers cheques, group travel services,international rate desks, executive travel and concierge services. Inthis context, travel-related services are often grouped into two groups,namely, arranging services to be provided by others, and servicesprovided directly by the travel agency. Another example of a travelrelated service is the system disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser.No. 09/346,085 filed on Jul. 1, 1999 and entitled “Ticket Tracking AndRefunding System And Method”, which is hereby incorporated by reference.

[0006] In the past, travel agencies often did not charge a transactionfee associated with the services provided by others. One of the reasonsthat travel agencies were able to be profitable without charging feesfor arranging services to be provided by others is that the airlines andother service providers typically offered overrides, commissions orincentives to reward the travel agency for the added business.

[0007] In addition to travel agencies, an in-house travel department mayact as a travel agency within a corporation or business providingsimilar services to people within their organization who havetravel-related needs. Alternatively, an in-house travel department maycoordinate travel issues with an outside travel agency. In either case,in-house travel departments in the past similarly found that overridesand commissions made it possible to operate the corporate traveldepartments as profit centers; thus eliminating the need to charge theindividual departments or travelers within their organization for thecosts associated with making the travel arrangements.

[0008] Beginning in approximately 1995, airlines and other serviceproviders made substantial cuts in the commissions, incentives, andoverrides mentioned above by reducing them in half, and in otherinstances eliminating them entirely. Furthermore, with the increased useof net pricing and net/net pricing, travel agencies have found itexceedingly difficult to be profitable without passing along the cost ofarranging travel to the individual or corporate client. For the samereasons, in-house corporate travel departments have been converted fromprofit centers to cost centers.

[0009] Travel agencies and in-house corporate travel departments oftenshared the commissions and overrides for each booking. Now that thesecommissions and overrides have been reduced or eliminated, corporatetravel department budgets are running negative and typically causing thecorporate travel departments to be in an accounts receivable status tothe travel agencies. Therefore, travel agencies now bear an increasedrisk of loss due to non-payment, increased interest expense due to delayin receiving the receivable amounts, and decreased cash flow. Theseproblems are further compounded where travel agencies have quarterlysettlement with their corporate clients. For these reasons, it hasrecently become common practice to charge fees for arranging servicesprovided by others to the client. This is a time consuming manualprocess for travel agencies who may have to reconcile and pass alongthese fees. It may also be confusing to individual travelers who travelinfrequently. A traveler who only flies occasionally might receive acredit card statement reflecting a single charge for an airline ticket,and a second charge elsewhere on the statement reflecting the fee owedto the travel agency. The situation becomes much more complicated,however, when a single individual travels frequently and makes use ofmany different services by a travel agency. In this situation, thefrequent traveler may find it increasingly difficult to match the feeswith the related airline flight or other services.

[0010] Charging the ticket to a credit card often makes payment for theprice of a ticket, although other means are also used such as checks orcash. Typically, the same payment instrument is used to pay for the feesaccompanying the ticket charges. In particular, corporate credit cardsand personal credit cards are frequently used to pay for tickets andrelated fees. One of the reasons for the difficulty in reconciling theservice fees to the travel ticket charges is the lack of informationtypically provided on credit card billing statements and other billingstatements used for corporate card accounts. Typically, the onlyinformation provided is the establishment name (e.g., the travelagency's name) and the total transaction fee (e.g., the fee associatedwith booking the airline flight). Furthermore, the date of thetransaction may be provided; however, the date of the ticket purchasemay be different from the date that the service fee is charged. In oneexample, the charge for the airline ticket may appear on one month'sbill and the charge for the service fee could occur in the subsequentbilling cycle if the cycle closes between the postings of these twocharges. Adding to this difficulty of reconciling the service fee to theticket charge is the fact that the service fee may have an establishmentname related to the travel agency, but the ticket charge is likely tohave an establishment name related to the airline.

[0011] The confusion in reconciling the fees to the tickets is oftencompounded in a corporate environment where multiple business travelerstake multiple flights in any given month. In these cases, andparticularly given the transformation of in-house corporate traveldepartments to cost centers, the in-house travel departments may want topass along the fees to the appropriate departments within their company.In addition, these fees are often passed along within the company to theclients being served by the business. For example, an attorney's clientmay have agreed to pay for travel-related expenses. In these situations,it is important that the appropriate airline charges and the appropriatefees associated with those charges be accurately reconciled andforwarded to the appropriate department or corporate client. This hasbeen a difficult task for corporate travel departments in some instancesbecause, under the past system, a travel agent might manually collectall the fees owed by one corporate entity and forward a monthly lump sumbalance owed by the corporation.

[0012] A significant amount of travel counselor intervention is oftenrequired to address the aforementioned issues. A travel counselor canmanually input information to identify the fee with the appropriateairline ticket purchase.

[0013] Regardless of whether this manual process occurs in the travelagency or in an in-house corporate travel department, there is anincreased human error potential and a reduction in the travelconsultant's productivity corresponding to the time spent performingthis manual transaction.

[0014] Other billing products such as EasyFEE by Automated TravelSystems and ARC MCOs have been developed to address these issues.However, these products do not offer enhanced descriptive billingstatements, and therefore the travel agencies/credit card companiesreceive calls from travelers requesting additional information to helpthem understand, validate, and reconcile their fees.

[0015] Furthermore, fee systems such as ATS, EasyFEE, and ARCMCO lackthe following or have the following deficiencies:

[0016] (1) they generally require manual travel counselor interventionresulting in poor time efficiency and increased error possibilities;

[0017] (2) they provide little to no descriptive bill detail resultingin increased traveler confusion trying to understand their fees andexpense them;

[0018] (3) they are not able to automatically charge fees for value ads,special services, or non-air transactions and pass the cost for theseservices to the traveler;

[0019] (4) they do not have the flexibility to automatically charge onlyone flat fee for several bookings related to one trip because they haveno user profile to work from; and

[0020] (5) they do not automatically allow the fee to be charged to analternate or a split form of payment because they have to bill throughthe airline.

[0021] Therefore, a need exists for billing with enhanced descriptionfor facilitating the reconciliation of the fees to the associated travelexpenses. A need also exists for billing that avoids manually breakingout and reconciling transaction fees, and improves travel counselorefficiency. A need also exists to create a system that avoids theproblems of lump billing transaction fees. There also exists a need toreplace the revenue, which has been lost, as commissions have beenreduced. There further exists a need to directly, systematically, andautomatically bill the fees and ticket charges to the appropriateentities. There further exists a need for a system that provides amethod for encouraging preferred buying practices such as paperlesstickets.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0022] The present invention provides a system for automatically billinga designated account for fees associated with the costs of tickets andother similar services. Passenger Name Record data and similar data isprovided through a Computerized Reservation System and an accountingsystem to a Fee Allocator program which interprets the data, determinesappropriate fees based on the data and a user profile, and bills thefees to an appropriate account based on the user profile. Billing dataprovided to the account also facilitates the process of reconciling thefees to the travel ticket costs. Enhanced descriptive billing statementscan be created simplifying the process of reconciling fees to the travelticket costs.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0023] The subject invention will hereinafter be described inconjunction with the appended drawing figures, wherein like numeralsdenote like elements, and:

[0024]FIG. 1 is a schematic representation of an exemplary embodiment ofthe present invention;

[0025]FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an exemplary embodiment of thepresent invention; and

[0026] FIGS. 3-6 are exemplary billing statements for various industriesand traveler needs;

[0027] FIGS. 7-8 are detailed block diagrams showing exemplaryembodiments of the present invention; and

[0028]FIG. 9 is a block diagram showing an exemplary embodiment of thepresent invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

[0029] The system may include a host server or other computing systemsincluding a processor for processing digital data, a memory coupled tosaid processor for storing digital data, an input digitizer coupled tothe processor for inputting digital data, an application program storedin said memory and accessible by said processor for directing processingof digital data by said processor, a display coupled to the processorand memory for displaying information derived from digital dataprocessed by said processor and a plurality of databases, said databasesincluding client data, merchant data, financial institution data and/orlike data that could be used in association with the present invention.Database may be any type of database, such as relational, hierarchical,object-oriented, and/or the like. Common database products that may beused to implement databases include DB2 by IBM (White Plains, N.Y.), anyof the database products available from Oracle Corporation (RedwoodShores, Calif.), Microsoft Access by Microsoft Corporation (Redmond,Wash.), MS SQL Sequel Server database on a Windows NT platform, or anyother database product. The database may be organized in any suitablemanner, including as data tables or lookup tables.

[0030] Association of certain data may be accomplished through any dataassociation technique known and practiced in the art. For example, theassociation may be accomplished either manually or automatically.Automatic association techniques may include, for example, a databasesearch, a database merge, GREP, AGREP, SQL, and/or the like. Theassociation step may be accomplished by a database merge function, forexample, using a “key field” in each of the manufacturer and retailerdata tables. A “key field” partitions the database according to thehigh-level class of objects defined by the key field. For example, acertain class may be designated as a key field in both the first datatable and the second data table, and the two data tables may then bemerged on the basis of the class data in the key field. In thisembodiment, the data corresponding to the key field in each of themerged data tables is preferably the same. However, data tables havingsimilar, though not identical, data in the key fields may also be mergedby using AGREP, for example.

[0031] The present invention may be described herein in terms offunctional block components, screen shots, optional selections andvarious processing steps. It should be appreciated that such functionalblocks may be realized by any number of hardware and/or softwarecomponents configured to perform the specified functions. For example,the present invention may employ various integrated circuit components,e.g., memory elements, processing elements, logic elements, look-uptables, and the like, which may carry out a variety of functions underthe control of one or more microprocessors or other control devices.Similarly, the software elements of the present invention may beimplemented with any programming or scripting language such as C, C++,Java, COBOL, assembler, PERL, extensible Markup Language (XML), with thevarious algorithms being implemented with any combination of datastructures, objects, processes, routines or other programming elements.Further, it should be noted that the present invention may employ anynumber of conventional techniques for data transmission, signaling, dataprocessing, network control, and the like. Still further, the inventioncould be used to detect or prevent security issues with a client-sidescripting language, such as JavaScript, VBScript or the like. For abasic introduction of cryptography, please review a text written byBruce Schneider which is entitled “Applied Cryptography: Protocols,Algorithms, And Source Code In C,” published by John Wiley & Sons(second edition, 1996), which is hereby incorporated by reference.

[0032] It should be appreciated that the particular implementationsshown and described herein are illustrative of the invention and itsbest mode and are not intended to otherwise limit the scope of thepresent invention in any way. Indeed, for the sake of brevity,conventional data networking, application development and otherfunctional aspects of the systems (and components of the individualoperating components of the systems) may not be described in detailherein. Furthermore, the connecting lines shown in the various figurescontained herein are intended to represent exemplary functionalrelationships and/or physical couplings between the various elements. Itshould be noted that many alternative or additional functionalrelationships or physical connections may be present in a practicalelectronic transaction system.

[0033] It will be appreciated, that many applications of the presentinvention could be formulated. One skilled in the art will appreciatethat the network may include any system for exchanging data ortransacting business, such as the Internet, an intranet, an extranet,WAN, LAN, satellite communications, and/or the like. It is noted thatthe network may be implemented as other types of networks, such as aninteractive television (ITV) network. The users may interact with thesystem via any input device such as a keyboard, mouse, kiosk, personaldigital assistant, handheld computer (e.g., Palm Pilot®), cellular phoneand/or the like. Similarly, the invention could be used in conjunctionwith any type of personal computer, network computer, workstation,minicomputer, mainframe, or the like running any operating system suchas any version of Windows, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows95, MacOS, OS/2, BeOS, Linux, UNIX, or the like. Moreover, although theinvention is described as being implemented with TCP/IP communicationsprotocols, it will be readily understood that the invention could alsobe implemented using IPX, Appletalk, IP-6, NetBIOS, OSI or any number ofexisting or future protocols. Moreover, the system contemplates the use,sale or distribution of any goods, services or information over anynetwork having similar functionality described herein.

[0034] The computing units may be connected with each other via a datacommunication network. The network may be a public network and assumedto be insecure and open to eavesdroppers. In the illustratedimplementation, the network may be embodied as the Internet. In thiscontext, the computers may or may not be connected to the Internet atall times. For instance, a computer may employ a modem to occasionallyconnect to the Internet, whereas other computers might maintain apermanent connection to the Internet. Specific information related tothe protocols, standards, and application software utilized inconnection with the Internet may not be discussed herein. For furtherinformation regarding such details, see, for example, Dilip Naik,Internet Standards and Protocols (1998); Java 2 Complete, variousauthors, (Sybex 1999); Deborah Ray and Eric Ray, Mastering HTML 4.0(1997). Loshin, TCP/IP Clearly Explained (1997). All of these texts arehereby incorporated by reference.

[0035] The various systems and servers may be suitably coupled to anetwork via data links. A variety of conventional communications mediaand protocols may be used for data links. Such as, for example, aconnection to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) over the local loop asis typically used in connection with standard modem communication, cablemodem, Dish networks, ISDN, Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), or variouswireless communication methods. Computing systems might also residewithin a local area network (LAN), which interfaces to a network via aleased line (T1, D3, etc.). Such communication methods are well known inthe art, and are covered in a variety of standard texts. See, e.g.,Gilbert Held, Understanding Data Communications (1996), herebyincorporated by reference.

[0036] As will be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art, thepresent invention may be embodied as a method, a data processing system,a device for data processing, and/or a computer program product.Accordingly, the present invention may take the form of an entirelysoftware embodiment, an entirely hardware embodiment, or an embodimentcombining aspects of both software and hardware. Furthermore, thepresent invention may take the form of a computer program product on acomputer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program codemeans embodied in the storage medium. Any suitable computer-readablestorage medium may be utilized, including hard disks, CD-ROM, opticalstorage devices, magnetic storage devices, and/or the like.

[0037] Communication between the parties to the transaction and thesystem of the present invention is accomplished through any suitablecommunication means, such as, for example, a telephone network,Intranet, Internet, point of interaction device (point of sale device,personal digital assistant, cellular phone, kiosk, etc.), onlinecommunications, off-line communications, wireless communications, and/orthe like. One skilled in the art will also appreciate that, for securityreasons, any databases, systems, or components of the present inventionmay consist of any combination of databases or components at a singlelocation or at multiple locations, wherein each database or systemincludes any of various suitable security features, such as firewalls,access codes, encryption, de-encryption, compression, decompression,and/or the like.

[0038] The present invention is described herein with reference toscreen shots, block diagrams and flowchart illustrations of methods,apparatus (e.g., systems), and computer program products according tovarious aspects of the invention. It will be understood that eachfunctional block of the block diagrams and the flowchart illustrations,and combinations of functional blocks in the block diagrams andflowchart illustrations, respectively, can be implemented by computerprogram instructions. These computer program instructions may be loadedonto a general purpose computer, special purpose computer, or otherprogrammable data processing apparatus to produce a machine, such thatthe instructions, which execute on the computer or other programmabledata processing apparatus create means for implementing the functionsspecified in the flowchart block or blocks.

[0039] These computer program instructions may also be stored in acomputer-readable memory that can direct a computer or otherprogrammable data processing apparatus to function in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readablememory produce an article of manufacture including instruction meanswhich implement the function specified in the flowchart block or blocks.The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer orother programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series ofoperational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmableapparatus to produce a computer-implemented process such that theinstructions which execute on the computer or other programmableapparatus provide steps for implementing the functions specified in theflowchart block or blocks.

[0040] Accordingly, functional blocks of the block diagrams andflowchart illustrations support combinations of means for performing thespecified functions, combinations of steps for performing the specifiedfunctions, and program instruction means for performing the specifiedfunctions. It will also be understood that each functional block of theblock diagrams and flowchart illustrations, and combinations offunctional blocks in the block diagrams and flowchart illustrations, canbe implemented by either special purpose hardware-based computer systemswhich perform the specified functions or steps, or suitable combinationsof special purpose hardware and computer instructions.

[0041] With reference to FIG. 1, the present invention includes a feeallocation system 100. In an exemplary embodiment, fee allocation system100 comprises a facilitating entity 110 which is any software and/orhardware suitably configured to facilitate purchases by a purchasingentity 120 of goods or services (“items”) from merchant entity 130.Purchases made by purchasing entity 120 may be charged to an accountprovided by credit entity 140. A processing system 150 is associatedwith fee allocation system 100 and is any hardware and/or softwaresuitably configured for, among other things, automatically disbursingtransaction fees to specific cost centers, facilitating enhanceddescriptive billing statements, and reconciliation of transaction feesto travel related expenses as further described herein.

[0042] One skilled in the art of the financial service industry willappreciate that “account” as used herein, includes any device, code, orother identifier/indicia suitably configured to allow the consumer tointeract or communicate with the system, such as, for example,authorization/access code, personal identification number (PIN),Internet code, other identification code, and/or the like which isoptionally located on a rewards card, charge card, credit card, debitcard, prepaid card, telephone card, smart card, magnetic stripe card,bar code card, and/or the like. The account number may be distributedand stored in any form of plastic, electronic, magnetic, and/or opticaldevice capable of transmitting or downloading data from itself to asecond device. A customer account number may be, for example, asixteen-digit credit card number, although each credit provider has itsown numbering system, such as the fifteen-digit numbering system used byAmerican Express. Each company's credit card numbers comply with thatcompany's standardized format such that the company using asixteen-digit format will generally use four spaced sets of numbers, asrepresented by the number “0000 0000 0000 0000”. The first five to sevendigits are reserved for processing purposes and identify the issuingbank, card type and etc. In this example, the last sixteenth digit isused as a sum check for the sixteen-digit number. The intermediaryeight-to-ten digits are used to uniquely identify the customer.

[0043] Although facilitating entity 110 is described in one exemplaryembodiment of the present invention as a travel agency, facilitatingentity 110 may alternatively be any embodiment where facilitating entity110 assists purchasers in acquiring, purchasing, or using goods orservices provided by merchants 130. For example, alternative embodimentsof facilitating entity 110 may include Internet and e-commerce basedon-line travel agencies, hotel type concierge services, ticket brokersfor entertainment venues, virtual travel agents, or similar entities.Furthermore, facilitating entity 110 could be a part of merchant entity130, such as an airline offering travel agent type services directly toits customers. Alternatively, facilitating entity 110 may be associatedwith purchasing entity 120, such as when a corporation or organizationhas one or more in-house travel departments that facilitate travelarrangements directly with merchants 130 on behalf of employees of thatorganization or corporation.

[0044] Purchasing entity 120, in an exemplary embodiment of the presentinvention, may represent a person, business, organization, corporationor other entity or any software and/or hardware 122. Organization 122may include individuals 124 which may be within further subdivisions ordepartments 126 of business 122. Alternatively, purchasing entity 120may represent a single individual or a group of individuals 124. In anexemplary embodiment, individual 124 desires travel related services andmay either contact facilitating entity 110 directly, or may contactfacilitating entity 110 through organization 122 or subdivision 126 toarrange the desired travel related services.

[0045] Merchant entity 130, in an exemplary embodiment, represents anairline selling travel related services. However, merchant 130 mayalternatively be any type of travel related merchant entity providingtravel services such as: rail services, bus services, car rentalservices, hotel reservations, traveler checks and/or the like.Furthermore, merchant entity 130 may provide other value added servicessuch as emergency travel services, international rate desk, andexecutive travel and concierge services such as, for example, similarservices provided by American Express®. Merchant entity 130 chargespurchasing entity 120 the cost of the goods or services acquired throughthis transaction. This cost may be charged directly to purchasing entity120. In another embodiment, this cost may be charged to purchasingentity 120 via a credit account with credit entity 140. Merchant entity130 may also provide exchanges, rebates, frequent flier miles, refunds,and credits to purchasing entity 120, some of which may be offeredthrough credit entity 140 or facilitating entity 110. Merchant entity130 may also provide non-travel related services or goods of any type ornature; for example, tickets to sporting and other entertainment venues.Furthermore, merchant entity 130 could be a typical bricks and mortartype merchant or, alternatively, may be an on-line e-commerce typemerchant, or may advertise and provide goods and services through anyother commonly known mediums.

[0046] For more information on transaction systems, electronic commercesystems, digital wallet systems and loyalty systems, see, for example,the Shop AMEX™ system as disclosed in Ser. No. 60/230,190 filed Sep. 5,2000; the MR as Currency™ and Loyalty Rewards Systems as disclosed inSer. No. 60/197,296 filed on Apr. 14, 2000, Ser. No. 60/200,492 filedApr. 28, 2000, and Ser. No. 60/201,114 filed May 2, 2000; a digitalwallet system as disclosed in U.S. Ser. No. 09/652,899 filed Aug. 31,2000; a stored value card as disclosed in Ser. No. 09/241,188 filed onFeb. 1, 1999; a system for facilitating transactions using secondarytransaction numbers as disclosed in Ser. No. 09/800,461 filed on Mar. 7,2001; and also in related provisional applications Ser. No. 60/187,620filed Mar. 7, 2000, Ser. No. 60/200,625 filed Apr. 28, 2000, and Ser.No. 60/213,323 filed May 22, 2000, the general technology of allreferences is hereby incorporated by reference. Other examples of onlinemembership reward systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,774,870,issued on Jun. 30, 1998, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,009,412, issued on Dec. 29,1999, along with other incentive award programs described in U.S. Pat.Nos. 5,774,870 and 6,009,412, issued to Thomas W. Storey and assigned toNetcentives, the general functionality of all references is herebyincorporated by reference. Additional information relating to smart cardand smart card reader payment technology is disclosed in Ser. No.60/232,040, filed on Sep. 12, 2000, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,742,845;5,898,838 and 5,905,908, owned by Datascape; the general technology ofall references is hereby incorporated by reference. Information onpoint-of-sale systems and the exploitation of point-of-sale data isdisclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,832,457, issued on Nov. 3, 1998 to O'Brienet al., the general technology of which is hereby incorporated byreference.

[0047] Although credit entity 140 is described in an exemplaryembodiment of the present invention as American Express CreditServices®, credit entity 140 may represent any bank, credit cardprovider, or other lending institution. Credit entity may be anyorganization, individual, entity, software and/or hardware suitablyconfigured for providing a billing mechanism whereby purchasing entity120 may compensate merchant entity 130 and/or facilitating entity 110for facilitating delivery of goods or services from merchant entity 130.It is further understood that credit entity 140 may be an independententity unrelated to the facilitating entity, the purchasing entity, orthe merchant entity. Credit entity 140 may also be, in further exemplaryembodiments, associated with one or more of these entities. For example,American Express is in the business of providing both travel services asa facilitating entity 110 and credit services as a credit providingentity 140. In other embodiments, a merchant entity 130 may offer creditservices, and in further embodiments purchasing entities may have creditproviding divisions within their own organizations 122.

[0048] Processing system 150 typically comprises any software and/orhardware suitably configured for enabling the process steps of thepresent invention as described herein. Processing system 150 may existin one physical location or, alternatively, may be disbursed in severallocations physically. Furthermore, processing system 150 may existindependently of facilitating entity 110 and credit entity 140 or may bedistributed as part of or all of facilitating entity 110, credit entity140, and processing system 150.

[0049] In one embodiment of the present invention, facilitating entity110 is configured to operate within the fee allocator system 100 byinstalling software on a computer located at facilitating entity 110 orby installing or updating software and/or hardware at remote locationsthat are associated with facilitating entity 110. This software mayinclude fee allocator scripts or other files used to update existingsoftware. One or more of processing system 150, credit entity 140, andfacilitating entity 110 may be pre-configured with information for thefee allocator program.

[0050] In an exemplary embodiment, an itinerary in a reservation systemmay be associated with a set of rules that should be followed. Forexample, a traveler may be associated with a rule that states that theflight can be rescheduled as long as the arrival time is within, e.g.,60 minutes of the booked flight. Additionally, a rule may state that thetraveler is willing to travel from or to a variety of airports (in acity with multiple airports, such as New York). Thereafter, each flightitinerary of that traveler may be associated with the traveler's rules.In the alternative, each traveler may be associated with a rule set bytheir employer. Another alternative allows each itinerary to have a setof rules that is set at the time that arrangements are established.Several of the above examples may be combined with each other. Forexample, a traveler may have a personal set of rules as well as rulesset by his employer. In another embodiment, a traveler may have ageneral set of rules, but may be able to augment or change those rulesat the time of placing each specific flight.

[0051] One method of associating rules with a traveler is to use anextension of the typical “member profile.” A traveler typicallycompletes a member profile in which he indicates his preference for,e.g., a window seat or an aisle seat. Such a profile may be extended toinclude information as to the traveler's rules. In addition, anorganization may have an organization profile, which indicates, e.g., apolicy, which does not allow First Class travel. The organizationprofile may be extended to contain rules that are associated with theorganization as a whole.

[0052] A user profile may be established for each purchasing entity 120,which may contain information such as: billing preferences, fees or feeformulas for reimbursing facilitating entity 110, information regardingaccounts to which fees are to be charged, and information regarding howfrequently fees are billed to purchasing entity 120. For example, theuser profile may indicate which credit card and account number is to beused for billing the fees. Other preferences can also be included in theuser profile such as ‘agreed to fee rates’ for specified services andprohibitions on using paper tickets.

[0053] Information in the user profiles may designate where certain feesshould be charged. For example, fees charged for arranging an airplaneticket may be charged to the same account as was used to pay for theairplane ticket. In another embodiment, those fees may be routed to adifferent account than the one used to pay for the airplane ticket. Asanother example, a corporation may wish to have all fees billed to aparticular account, to a particular department, or to designatedclient/project accounts. Furthermore, processing system 150 can redirectfees to credit entities such as American Express, VISA, MasterCard, orother such financial accounts or transaction cards. This flexibilityallows the purchasing entity to predetermine how they would like to bebilled. The user profile may also specify whether individual fees arecharged for each service or whether one fee is to be charged for allservices associated with a particular trip. Use of the fee allocatorsystem also allows purchasing entity 120 to avoid the manual timeconsuming efforts involved in reconciling these fees, and opportunityfor human error is reduced.

[0054] Purchasing entity 120 may agree to a periodic fee billing method,and to the amount of the fees or to a formula for calculating fees owed.In one embodiment of the present invention, the fees may be downloadedfrom a facilitating entity's accounting system to a fee allocatorprogram on a daily basis where the fees are processed and thentransmitted to credit entity 140. In an alternative embodiment, one ormore of the steps of downloading, processing and transmitting may occuron a more frequent or less frequent basis as desired.

[0055] Fees may be calculated or established in a variety of ways. Forexample, facilitating entity 110 may charge a set fee for each itemtransaction (for services provided or goods delivered). Alternatively,fees charged by facilitating entity 110 may vary. Fees may vary bydepending on the types of goods or services, may vary based upon orproportional to the price of the goods or services offered by merchantentity 130, or facilitating entity 110 may establish other formulas forcalculating fees. Fees may be established to influence preferredpurchasing entity behavior. Furthermore, facilitating entity 110 maywish to set fees to achieve certain goals and receive incentives frommerchant entity 130. Fees may also be established to compensate foroperating costs and profits needed by facilitating entity 110. For moreinformation on fee charging systems, see, for example, U.S. Pat. No.4,970,655, Automatic fee collecting and receipt dispensing system; U.S.Pat. No. 5,634,012, System for controlling the distribution and use ofdigital works having a fee reporting mechanism; and U.S. Pat. No.5,987,429, Computer-based fee processing for electronic commerce, thegeneral functionality and technology of which is hereby incorporated byreference.

[0056] In one embodiment, an additional fee may be charged to purchasingentity 120 for use of the fee allocator system. This fee may bestructured to encourage preferred behavior. Alternatively, because feeallocator system 100 provides many benefits to a facilitating entity110, facilitating entity 110 may provide the fee allocator systembenefits to purchasing entity 120 free of charge. Benefits include thepossibility of directing more traffic to a particular credit entity 140.For example, credit entity 140 may wish to encourage facilitating entity110 to use fee allocating system 100 to in order to direct more businessto credit entity 140. Furthermore, facilitating entity 110 can influencespending habits of purchasing entity 120 by varying the fees charged toencourage desired behavior, thus the facilitator may, for example,charge less for preferred behavior and more for undesirable behavior.Undesirable behavior may include use of paper tickets, information onlycalls, ticket copy requests, etc. Desirable behavior (e.g., charginglower fees for interactive bookings, e-tickets) results in increasedtravel policy compliance, which results in more efficient spending forcompany travel. Facilitating entity 110 also benefits from the abilityto automatically charge fees to a credit card type account as opposed tobilling a client and waiting for the client to send the money. Theautomatic ability to direct the appropriate fees to the appropriatecharge accounts can reduce the chance of human error by facilitatingentity 110 in preparation of billing statements, and also improvestravel consultant efficiency because the travel consultant does not haveto spend the time manually entering or manipulating these fees. Theability to charge the fees to an account can improve cash flow andshifts the risks of loss to the accounts.

[0057]FIG. 9 shows physical systems which, in various embodiments of thepresent invention, make up parts of facilitating entity 110, creditentity 140, and processing system 150, as shown in FIG. 1. Facilitatingentity 110 may include a travel agent computer 910. Credit entity 140may further be include billing systems 950. Processing system 150 mayfurther be composed of back office computer 920, mainframe database 930,sequel server database 940, and accounting and information managementsystems 960. A travel agent will typically have a computer 910 formaking reservations and providing reservation and user profileinformation for further processing. For example, travel agent computer910 may pass this information to a “back office” computer 920. Backoffice computer provides information to a mainframe database 930 as wellas other accounting and information management systems. Mainframedatabase 930 provides relevant reservation information (filtered data)to sequel server database 940, which then combines that information withuser profile information to generate appropriate billing information,which can then be passed to billing systems 950 and accounting systems960.

[0058] Travel agent computer 910 may use a computer system that containsa database of travel arrangements. The databases of existing systems,also known as Computer Reservation Systems (“CRS”) or GlobalDistribution Systems (“GDS”), in which travel arrangements are storedmay be used in this context. For example, companies such as AmadeusGlobal Travel Distribution, LLC, of Miami, Fla., Sabre, Galileo, andWorldspan each run a GDS. Other databases, such as those used by travelagencies with a World Wide Web presence such as Microsoft's Expedia siteor Sabre's Travelocity site, may also be accessed by an embodiment ofthe present invention. All of the foregoing known systems are herebyincorporated by reference. For more information on centralizedregistration systems, see, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,023,679, Pre-and post-ticketed travel reservation information management system; U.S.Pat. No. 5,948,040, Travel reservation information and planning system;U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,176; Method and apparatus for interacting with acomputer reservation system; U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,499, Computer travelplanning system; U.S. Pat. No. 6,009,408, Automated processing of travelrelated expenses; U.S. Pat. No. 6,122,642, System for propagating,retrieving and using transaction processing facility airlinecomputerized reservation system data on a relational database processingplatform; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,897,620, Method and apparatus for the saleof airline-specified flight tickets; the general functionality of allreferences is hereby incorporated by reference.

[0059] The database typically consists of a number of different fieldsthat are formatted to contain specific information. The rows or recordscontain a memorialization of a reservation, with information in each ofthe fields. For example, a field in the database may be titledDATE_DEPARTURE and may contain information regarding the departure dateof each row in the database. A row in the database would indicate eachof the particulars of a reservation, for example, the name of thetraveler, a contact method, the departure time and place, and thearrival time and place. Each row corresponds to a Passenger Name Record(“PNR”) in the database. The PNR contains reservation informationincluding the type of ticket (electronic ticket, paper ticket, exchangeticket).

[0060] With reference now to FIG. 2, a general overview of the feeallocator system is discussed. Initially, the travel office must gothrough a client set up process 210 where computer programs and scriptsand user profiles are prepared for future use. In one embodiment, duringticket issuance/booking processes 215, flights are booked by the travelagency for a traveler 124 on an airline 130, invoices are printed, andthe CRS system sends PNR data to a back office accounting system.

[0061] In an exemplary embodiment, the CRS system provides bookinginformation, such as that included in the PNR, in the form of anaccounting interface record to a travel agency accounting system (step250). These travel agency accounting systems are also known asback-office accounting systems and one example of such a system is MAXused by American Express®. The accounting system may be associated withfacilitating entity 110 and may be a part of processing system 150. Theaccounting system may, among other things, forward all or some of thisdata to an Airline Reporting Corporation (ARC) system (step 270). TheARC processes this information and bills the purchaser's credit accountfor the airline ticket (step 270).

[0062] The travel agency accounting system provides the PNR data to oneor more databases and processes the data with an automated travelbilling system (step 260). The automated travel billing system then mayprovide information to management information systems (step 280) anddetermine appropriate fees (step 290).

[0063] The fee allocator process can be understood in further detailwith reference to FIGS. 7A-7C. An exemplary client setup process (step210) may start when the clients (typically a travel agency and/orbusiness traveler) are informed of the fee allocator product and agreeto fee billing and other terms (step 702, FIG. 7A). Client profiles areupdated or created through the travel agency's central reservationsystem and in accordance with these agreements (step 704). The clientprofiles may be updated and provided to systems as described hereinthrough use of ‘scripts,’ which provide automated functions. Asdiscussed above, a variety of fees can be established for differentservices, and multiple profiles can be created for charging differentfees to different divisions within a corporation. The client set up isreported out to a Client Financial Services system (step 708), whichcreates a client profile in the fee allocator (“FA”) system (step 710).Although this may be a onetime setup process, the member profileinformation may be modified from time to time as desired by the client.

[0064] In FIG. 7A, a typical ticket issuance sequence (step 215) isdescribed in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.Facilitating entity 110 may utilize a computer airline booking system,such as a CRS to facilitate finding an airplane flight suitable toindividual 124 and arranging a travel reservation on that flight. Forexample, during the ticket booking process, a travel agent creates a PNR(step 720) upon customer request to book a flight, issues a ticket (step722), and prints a travel itinerary with the transaction fee printed onthe traveler's invoice/itinerary (step 724). The invoice/itinerary mayshow a message reminding the purchaser that the service fee has beencharged according to the customer's profile. In other embodiments, thestep of printing paper tickets and invoices may be avoided by using, forexample, E-tickets. The transaction fee may be calculated based on theclient profile through the use of scripts. The PNR data may then beprovided to travel agency accounting system (step 728). The transactionfee may be captured in the DS2 field (e.g., fees for Ticket TRAX only)of the PNR and interfaced to the accounting program, thus avoiding theuse of some scripts.

[0065] In some embodiments, fees for non-CRS services are included inthe PNR record associated with purchase of a ticket or similar CRSservices. In other embodiments, fees for non-CRS services may be chargedthrough the CRS system by appending the fees to a zero dollar invoice inthe CRS. The zero dollar invoice can be sent out via the CRS as acarrier of information needed to perform automated billing of fees. Asan example, a fee may be charged for special services not offeredthrough the CRS system such as emergency travel services. In this case,a script may be used to create a zero dollar invoice, which may be sentout through the CRS system. A script is a series of commands, whichhelps automate a process. The zero dollar invoice contains data that canbe interpreted by the automated billing processes for determination ofthe appropriate fee(s) to be charged. These zero dollar invoices mayalso be used to process fees for manual/phone booked airline flightswhere the flight is booked without going through the CRS, but the fee ischarged through the CRS. In a further embodiment, the scripts mayautomatically create these zero dollar invoices when non-CRS servicesare purchased. For example, when an agent processes a request foremergency travel services, a script can cause a three digit term code tobe provided in the remarks field of a zero dollar invoice in the CRSsystem where the three digit term code can later be interpreted todetermine what kind of transaction took place and therefore how much tocharge.

[0066] With further reference to FIG. 7A, a ticket voiding process 729may include steps such as using scripts to code each voided ticket aseither Travel agent requested or Customer requested (step 727). The voidlog PNR is electronically transferred to a back office accounting systemon a periodic basis (step 725), and travel counselors inform travelersof the impact of voiding tickets under the Fee Allocator agreements(step 723). Under appropriate circumstances, such as when the void isrequested by the travel agent, the fees charged by fee allocator wouldbe refunded (step 721) and this data passed to the back officeaccounting system.

[0067] With reference to FIG. 7B and 7C, the daily fee allocationprocess 700 is described in further detail. In an exemplary embodiment,the travel agency accounting system stores all or some of the PNR datafrom the CRS in a database, for example, on a mainframe computer (steps728, 730, and 731). The data in this database is filtered (step 732)such that only relevant data is provided for automated billing to createan invoice file. The mainframe also processes the PNR data to determinethe type of credit card or account used and to supplement the databaseand filtered invoice file with additional relevant information (step733). This file is then downloaded to a Sequel Server running the feeallocator system (step 734). It is noted here that processing system 150may be configured such that the herein described processes areautomatically executed on a periodic basis.

[0068] The invoice file is matched against periodically (for example,weekly) updated billing system profile data, received during step 710,to create a consolidated file that associates each invoice transactionwith the related information from the client's billing profile. Theconsolidated file is then used to automatically bill the appropriate feeto the purchaser's credit account (through the steps described below).During this process, the PNR information in the consolidated file, suchas the traveler's name, type of ticket, or travel service is recognizedand used to determine an appropriate fee.

[0069] In one embodiment, the fee charged always corresponds to the feeindicated in the user's profile information that correlates to the typeof transaction indicated in the consolidated file. In this embodiment,all fees are programmed during the account set-up process. The fees arethen automatically charged when the invoice is driven through to MAX.MAX automatically reads the invoice for CRS services or reads the termcodes entered by the travel counselors using scripts for non-CRSservices. In another optional embodiment, the fee indicated in the DS2field may be compared to the fee indicated by that user's profileinformation to validate the indicated fee, chose the lower of the two,or over-ride the indicated fee with the profile fee (step 735).

[0070] Fee allocator may also validate the form of payment (FOP) (step736). In this step, the user profile is checked to see if the user wantsto bill the fees to the same account used for the ticket or to analternately designated account. If agreed upon (noted in user profile),a reconciliation fee and/or travel manager fees may be charged (step737). Automatically determining the appropriate fees for billing maytake place, for example, on a MS SQL Sequel Server database on a WindowsNT platform.

[0071] Next, credit entity 140 may authorize charges to their ownaccounts (step 750). For example, American Express products, includingindividual Corporate and Personal Cards, Corporate Purchasing Cards andcentral bills, may be authorized through American Express' CardAuthorization System (CAS), which will approve or decline the form ofpayment. Next, exception and rejection reports can be generated withreason codes and stored for example in a Lotus Notes database (step738). These exception reports may be manually processed and reviewed forfurther action. Feeds are then sent to card systems (step 739 on FIG. 7Band 740 on FIG. 7C) such as non-affiliate cards (step 741), affiliatenon-corporate cards (step 742), and affiliate corporate cards (step743). If the purchaser's user profile indicates that the fees are to becharged to a non-affiliated credit entity, then the charges with therelevant ticket number or record locator number are delivered through athird-party processor, such as Purchase Express, or Payment Link.

[0072] Feeds are also sent to accounting programs (step 744) and otherinformation systems for reporting (step 745). The system mayperiodically provide travel management information to accountingprograms, such as American Express's Global Information System (GIS),which produces reports for the travel agency. These reports may includesummaries of the number of types of services rendered, and the feescharged for those services. American Express' Client Financial Servicesmay also process a monthly settlement, which: (1) totals travel agencyservice fees that are due to American Express; (2) subtracts commissionsand overrides; (3) subtracts total transaction fees collected throughfee allocator; and (4) automatically charges any negative balance tobusiness accounts if applicable, or returns a positive balance to theclient via check or charge card credit.

[0073] The credit entity's own non-corporate card feed may betransferred to payment processing systems such as Regular Card Products,Optima, and Triumph (step 747). These systems perform the processingnecessary to generate personal billing statements. Although examples ofseveral billing statements are provided herein, it is noted that fornon-affiliate cards and for non-corporate credit entity cards, thedescriptive information is generally more limited. For example, somenon-affiliate billing programs limit the description line to 17characters. Other non-corporate billing processing limits thedescription to two lines of information. Enhanced descriptive billinginformation can be provided for some billing products. For example, feesto be charged to corporate card accounts are directed through theCorporate Accounts Receivable System (CARS), which manages accountingtasks and provides information to a number of corporate billing accounts(step 748). For example, CARS provides fee billing information tocentral bill statement programs (step 752) shown in further detail onFIG. 8B. CARS also provides information to other custom billing andreconciliation systems (steps 749 and 751).

[0074]FIGS. 8A through 8E show application architecture block diagramsshowing more detail on an exemplary system including the fee allocatorsystem. Selected steps conform to those steps illustrated in FIGS. 7A-C.With reference now to FIG. 8A, in one embodiment, the process ofautomatically calculating fees (step 810) occurs on a Sequel Server,which compares invoice information from PNR data to user profileinformation to match up the correct fees to the transactions. Thisprocess may also include the optional ticket data over-ride (step 735,FIG. 7B). These steps are more fully discussed above.

[0075] The mainframe processing may identify PNR level transactions andidentify if this PNR data is the first occurrence for that trip, or asubsequent occurrence on the same PNR record. Step 805, FIG. 8A. In thisway, the fee allocator can later process fees for each transaction, oron a per trip basis, depending on the user profile selections.

[0076] While processing for Non-affiliate cards may proceed from step810 to step 738, processing for affiliate cards may temporarily divertto step 750 where the authorization is first checked to make sure thatthe fees can be charged to the chosen account. Downstream feeds areprovided to a number of applications and databases shown at referencenumber 815 on FIG. 8C, such as the following American Expressapplications: Ticket TRAX, Purchase Express, JEAPPS, CAP, Client PaymentSystem (CPS) Legacy, and a Lotus Notes Database. These downstream feedsprovide fee allocator information in the appropriate format to theseaccounting applications and databases.

[0077] With reference to FIG. 8B, for personal card billing affiliatedwith credit entity 140, data may be provided to an accounting system,such as American Express' Fincap 501/00 (step 742), which processes thefees and assists in preparing billing statements (step 747). Forcorporate card billing affiliated with credit entity 140, data may beprovided to an accounting system, such as American Express' Fincap301/41 (step 743), which provides a “back-door” entry for passing in FeeAllocator data into the Corporate Accounts Receivable System (CARS)(step 748). Through this “back door”, the enhanced descriptive billinginformation can be passed to provide, in one embodiment, 3 lines of 42characters each of billing data. CARS processes data processes the feesand assists in preparing billing statements (step 747).

[0078] CARS provides down stream feeds for electronic statement clients,reconciliation systems, automated expense-reporting tools, other custombilling systems, and management information systems. These feeds and therelated system are identified as 820. CARS also provides fee allocatordata processing such that sub-systems can generate various billingstatements that correctly incorporate the fee allocator fees into theunique presentation of the individual billing statements. The variety inthese billing statements is exemplified by American Express statementssuch as Enhanced Country Club Billing (ECCB) 830, Business TravelAccounts (BTA) 832, Airline Central Billing (ACB) 834, Airline CentralCredit Billing Fanfold (ACCB) 836, and Airline Billing Account (ABA)838. In each of these billing statement types, the fee allocator fee isrecognized and classified in the appropriate place as discussed in moredetail below.

[0079] A bridge from the back office accounting system 730 (FIG. 8A)provides even more data on the ABA, which may be merged with dataprovided by CARS 748 in step 840 on FIG. 8B to provide enhanced billingdetail as described below. The ABA product may, for example be availableto American Express Travel and Card clients. FIGS. 8D & 8E show afurther exemplary embodiment from an application architectureperspective where corresponding architecture has been identified withreference numbers from previous steps in other figures.

[0080] In one example, the fees may be charged daily or on the Friday ofthe next week, per the client's request. For weekly processing, theremay be a 7-14 day difference between the date of the airline ticketcharge and the date of the transaction fee charge. The fees charged byfacilitating entity 110 may be counted towards a client's incentiveprogram, frequent flier miles, reward points, and similar programs, asdiscussed above. The fee allocator system can bill to all accounts, ormay be limited to work with only certain designated accounts.

[0081] When these fees are charged, reconciliation information is sentto the credit account. In one embodiment, the reconciliation informationcan be printed on the bills. In another embodiment, the fees and thetravel related expenses can be sorted and grouped together on a reportfacilitating reconciliation of large numbers of fees and relatedexpenses. This reconciliation information may include, for example, theticket number, record locator, or date of the flight. More or lessinformation may be provided as appropriate, as discussed below withreference to several example-billing statements.

[0082] For example, FIG. 3 shows an Enhanced Country Club BillingAmerican Express Corporate Card Statement. For each transaction, adescriptive fee identifier (i.e. AMERICAN EXPRESS PAPER TICKET FEE,AMERICAN EXPRESS E-TICKET FEE, AMERICAN EXPRESS INTERACTIVE TICKET FEE,AMERICAN EXPRESS TICKET EXCHANGE FEE, AMERICAN EXPRESS TICKET REFUNDFEE) 322, the 13-digit ticket number 324, passenger name 326, invoicedate 328, routing 330 and transaction amount 332 are provided. Lines 310and 320 show examples of two transactions displaying such information.In other embodiments, the routing 330 and invoice date 328 are notshown. Total new charges 340 are shown including the transaction feesamount 332.

[0083]FIGS. 4A and 4B show a portion of an Airline Billing Account (ABA)statement. In FIG. 4A, a summary page shows new charges 410 whichinclude the transaction fees. In FIG. 4B, transaction fee 420 for theairline/rail tickets appears on the ABA statement. The transaction feesmatch to the reservation data and print all availabletransactional-level information: a descriptive transaction feeidentifier (i.e. AMERICAN EXPRESS PAPER TICKET FEE, AMERICAN EXPRESSE-TICKET FEE, AMERICAN EXPRESS INTERACTIVE TICKET FEE, AMERICAN EXPRESSTICKET EXCHANGE FEE, AMERICAN EXPRESS TICKET REFUND FEE) 444, passengername 446, routing 442, class 448, airline code 450, departure date 452,invoice number 454, invoice date 455, ticket number 456, AmericanExpress reference number 458, and transaction fee amount 420. In thisembodiment, all related ticket charges and/or refunds and theircorresponding transaction fees sort together so long as they arereceived in the same billing cycle (see reference 430). Each linerepresents a transaction 440.

[0084] In another embodiment, FIG. 5 shows a Business Travel Account(BTA). The BTA is similar to the ABA discussed with reference to FIGS.4A and 4B, however, the BTA product does not produce a fully reconciledstatement. Instead, a tape or diskette of the company's billing monthlytransactions is sent to the travel agency to match the reservation datawith the billing data. The transaction fee(s) appear on the BTAstatement within the “ALL OTHER TRANSACTIONS DETAIL SECTION” 510. Hereas in the previous examples, similar descriptive information is providedfor each transaction (see 520 and 530). The transaction fees are totaledfor each individual 540, and are collectively totaled on a separatesection not shown.

[0085] A further embodiment, not shown, is an Airline Central BillingDiversion account statement. These are similar to the ABA and BTAdiscussed above, however, the diversion accounts are designed to be usedin conjunction with American Express Corporate Cards and to charge theflight to the individual's Corporate Card and the fee to a centralstatement that goes to the individual's corporation. A large variety offee types can be diverted, such as airline and rail fees and credits,car rental fees, card fees, and cash fees. Therefore, the individualCardmember receives a bill similar to that shown in FIG. 3. The ticketcharge may be shown, and the fee information may also be shown, but thefee amount has been diverted and may show as $0.00 indicating that theCardmember is not responsible for that fee. The individual's corporationalso receives a statement similar to those discussed above withreference to FIGS. 4 and 5, and the corporation is responsible for thefees diverted to it. On an ACCB, fee allocator fees related to refundedtickets can be automatically credited to a central billing account ifdesired.

[0086] To the extent that collaboration exists (i.e. they areaffiliates, or owned by the same company) between the entity using thefee allocator program and the credit entity, it is possible to provideenhanced descriptive billing statements which are able to display morereconciliation information and to display such information in alternateformats. With regard to the creation of enhanced descriptive billingstatements, the reconciliation information is provided to a billingsystem, which interprets the information, and then generates an enhancedbilling statements such as the ABA discussed above.

[0087] To the extent that no collaboration exists between the entityusing fee allocator and the credit entity, a more limited amount ofreconciliation information can still be provided on the purchaser'sbilling statement. In this second embodiment, the charges for fees andreconciliation information may be sent out through Purchase Express,however, the reconciliation information may be restricted, for example,to 23 characters which might include any of the information discussedherein. In this embodiment, the recipient of the bill for the fees maybe able to reconcile the fees to the travel related charge becauseincluded in the charge description line is the ticket number, recordlocator, date of the flight, or other such identifying data. FIGS. 6A-6Cshow exemplary itineraries with similar information as described abovewith regards to FIGS. 3 and 4, and showing a message 600 which in oneexample reads, “as per our agreement with your company you have beencharged a non-refundable travel service fee of $XX.00. A travel servicefee of $XX.00 will be charged for refunded tickets. . . .”

[0088] In another embodiment, a user can select an alternate billingdisplay, such as with a partial enhanced descriptive billing statementor no enhanced descriptive billing statement, and the fee allocatorsystem can be configured to provide less information for the billingstatements, if, for example, a purchaser does not want to pay for theenhanced billing feature. In this embodiment, purchasing entity 120 doesnot get an enhanced descriptive billing statement, but does get billingand itinerary information facilitating reconciliation of fees withrelated service prices. Nevertheless, even a traveler using anon-affiliated credit entity can establish multiple accounts such thatthe fees are billed to the correct cost center, thus reducing the timeand effort of manually redistributing those fees to specific corporateaccounts.

[0089] By automatically and individually billing each fee to atraveler's credit account, lumped fee billing is avoided or minimizedwithout any additional travel consultant intervention. Also, ifrequested in the user profile, fees may be automatically split betweenseparate credit accounts without any additional travel counselorintervention. For example, a traveler may wish for half of the feeassociated with a plane flight to be charged to his own account and halfto be charged to a corporate travel account. Furthermore, it is possibleto configure a user profile such that fees are charged to one creditaccount and the price of the ticket is charged to another account.

[0090] The automatic fee allocation process reduces the time consumingmanual efforts of travel counselors at travel agencies involved withseparately generating much of the PNR data, coordinating fee billingwith client preferences, and manually billing the fees. The feeallocator program includes the flexibility for meeting client's billingand cost allocation process needs, streamlining administrative tasks,and reducing the number of service calls because the simplified expensereconciliation reporting mechanism causes less confusion.

[0091] In the prior art, a facilitating entity typically sent a bill toa purchasing entity on a monthly or quarterly basis, for example, andwaited to receive payment back from purchasing entity 120. In thepresent invention, however, facilitating entity 110 may charge the feeto an account (“credit card”) with credit entity 140. Thus, facilitatingentity 110 no longer bears the risk of loss due to non-payment nor bearsthe loss of interest that could have been earned on that amount ofmoney. Facilitating entity 110 is therefore able to enjoy an improvedcash flow by replacing the quarterly settlement systems often used inthe prior art with monthly payment. Unlike the airlines that have towait for ARC validation of the charges they process, in an exemplaryembodiment, the fee allocator system is not duplicative of another feebeing charged and thus can readily process the fees.

[0092] In the foregoing specification, the invention has been describedwith reference to specific embodiments. However, it will be appreciatedthat various modifications and changes can be made without departingfrom the scope of the present invention as set forth in the claimsbelow. The specification and figures are to be regarded in anillustrative manner, rather than a restrictive one, and all suchmodifications are intended to be included within the scope of presentinvention. Accordingly, the scope of the invention should be determinedby the appended claims and their legal equivalents, rather than by theexamples given above. For example, the steps recited in any of themethod or process claims may be executed in any order and are notlimited to the order presented in the claims.

[0093] Benefits, other advantages, and solutions to problems have beendescribed above with regard to specific embodiments. However, thebenefits, advantages, solutions to problems, and any element(s) that maycause any benefit, advantage, or solution to occur or become morepronounced are not to be construed as critical, required, or essentialfeatures or elements of any or all the claims. As used herein, the terms“comprises”, “comprising”, or any other variation thereof, are intendedto cover a non-exclusive inclusion, such that a process, method,article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements does not includeonly those elements but may include other elements not expressly listedor inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Further, noelement described herein is required for the practice of the inventionunless expressly described as “essential” or “critical”.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer implemented method for facilitatingthe allocation of fees comprising the steps of: receiving data from anautomated billing system; establishing a user profile; determining atleast one fee using said data and based upon said user profile; andcharging said fee to an account.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein saidautomated billing system is a Computer Reservation System.
 3. The methodof claim 2 wherein said data is Passenger Name Record data.
 4. Themethod of claim 3 wherein said fee is charged to an account associatedwith said user profile.
 5. The method of claim 1 further including thestep of providing a portion of said data to a management informationsystem for providing periodic reports.
 6. The method of claim 1 furtherincluding the steps of: formatting data in a Passenger Name Record dataformat; and providing said data to said Computer Reservation System. 7.The method of claim 4 further comprising the step of providing anenhanced descriptive billing statement with fee reconciling information.8. The method of claim 4 further comprising the step of providing saidaccount with fee reconciling information.
 9. The method of claim 2further comprising the step of charging a fee for use of the method ofclaim
 2. 10. A digital storage medium having instructions stored thereonconfigured to execute the method of claim
 1. 11. A system forfacilitating allocation of fees, said system comprising: means forreceiving data from an accounting system; means for receiving a userprofile; means for determining a fee to be charged for assistance by afacilitating entity based on said user profile and data; and means forcharging said fee to an account associated with said user profile. 12.The system of claim 11, wherein said data further comprises PassengerName Record data.
 13. The system of claim 12, wherein said data isreceived from a Computer Reservation System.
 14. The system of claim 11,wherein said processing system is further configured to assist saidcredit entity in providing an enhanced billing statement comprising feereconciliation information.
 15. The system of claim 11, wherein saidprocessing system is further configured to provide said credit entitywith fee reconciliation information.
 16. The system of claim 11, whereinsaid processing system further provides data to a management informationsystem for providing said facilitating entity with periodic reports. 17.A computer implemented method for facilitating allocation of fees foruse by a travel agency, wherein said travel agency assists a traveler inmaking travel related purchases from a merchant entity, said methodcomprising the steps of: receiving Passenger Name Record data from anaccounting system, said accounting system configured to receivePassenger Name Record data from a Computer Reservation System; receivinga user profile; comparing said Passenger Name Record data to informationin said user profile to determine a fee to be charged for saidassistance by said travel agency; and charging said fee to an accountassociated with said user profile.
 18. The method of claim 18, furthercomprising the step of facilitating the enhancement of a billingstatement with fee reconciliation information.
 19. The method of claim18, further comprising the step of providing said credit entity with feereconciliation information.
 20. The method of claim 18, furthercomprising the step of charging said fee to a different account than theaccount used to charge for the cost of said travel related purchase. 21.The method of claim 18, further comprising the steps of: providing datato a management information system for providing said facilitatingentity with periodic reports; and providing at least some of saidPassenger Name Record data to said management information system.
 22. Adigital storage medium having instructions stored thereon configured toexecute the method of claim
 18. 23. A method for receiving automated feebilling associated with a travel agency, said method comprising thesteps of: providing user profile information including an account forbilling of fees; conducting a transaction with a merchant; and receivingan account billing statement including a separate fee charged for thetransaction based upon said user profile information.
 24. The method ofclaim 25 wherein said transaction is a ticket purchase.
 25. The methodof claim 25 wherein said transaction is emergency travel serviceassistance.
 26. The method of claim 25 wherein said fee is reconciledwith associated transaction costs in said account billing statement.